


Dancing On My Own

by neversaydie



Category: Walking Dead, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: AU, Community: twd_kinkmeme, First Time, Gay Bar, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 00:33:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neversaydie/pseuds/neversaydie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took him more than 20 years to get our from under Merle's thumb long enough to make it into the city on his own. Daryl's first night at a gay club.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing On My Own

Daryl rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans and tried to remember how to breathe. In and out. He hadn't had a panic attack since high school, and he'd be damned if he was going to have one now. This was fine, he could do this. It was just a bar.

  
Except it wasn't just a bar. Couples of the same sex were sitting together, and dancing, and kissing, and Daryl was completely out of his depth. He'd bought a new shirt, from a real store and not the thrift shop, because he figured the less hick he looked, the better his chances were of actually meeting somebody. The whole 'meeting someone' thing was rapidly going out of the window though; at this point he'd be doing well if he could just get himself a drink without freaking out.

  
He didn't even know what fucking drink he was supposed to order. He didn't know what people did here. Could he just get a beer, or did people drink something else here? Would it be too straight? He'd never met another gay person, not that he knew of anyway, and he didn't know how he was supposed to act around them. So much of his behaviour was built around acting straight and staying under the radar that he didn't know what was him and what was the act anymore. Maybe this wasn't the place for him. People like him didn't belong here.

  
But then he glanced to his right and saw a group of men talking, one with his arm slung casually around another's waist, and something settled in his stomach. He'd spent his whole life constantly on alert, afraid that someone was going to figure him out and make him pay for who he was. No one was going to mess with him here. Behind the group, he saw a lesbian couple making out and was relieved that he didn't have to pretend he found them arousing, to whoop and holler and ruin their day for the sake of keeping up appearances with his brother. Maybe people like him did belong here, he just needed some time to adjust.

  
Daryl found a place to stand at the bar and surveyed the scene, feeling lost and wondering if it was maybe a good idea to just turn and high-tail it out of here the way he came in. He'd made it here, into the city, away from Merle, and to the bar in the first place. He didn't have to accomplish everything today, there'd be other times. Baby steps.

  
Baby steps, his high school 'girlfriend' used to tell him, when she put eyeliner on him for the first time and he might have cried on her shoulder a little bit. Baby steps.

  
"You new here, honey?"

  
Daryl jumped as someone put a hand on his shoulder and startled him out of his thoughts. He tried not to jump again when he turned around to see who it was.

  
"S'it that obvious?" Daryl did his best to sound flippant, but he was still trying to force down the rising panic in his chest at simply being here, let alone talking to someone.

Seeming to understand the situation, the huge drag queen in sea-green sequins and silver feathers leaned over and tapped someone standing behind Daryl on the back, getting their attention with little trouble. It wasn't like she was exactly a wallflower.

  
"Shane sweetie, get this kid a beer. He don't even know he's born yet."

  
With that she swished off, greeting a group of friends and taking a proffered martini glass with the kind of grace Daryl had always secretly envied his female peers. It was a second before he realised someone else was talking to him, blindsided as he was by the whole situation.

  
"Hey, I'm Shane." The muscular guy with a shaven head held out his hand for Daryl, who shook it gratefully.

  
"Daryl." He did manage a smile this time, starting to relax a bit. This guy seemed more like him: rough around the edges, not quite so much day-glo and glitter as the rest of the bar. Maybe he was okay here just as he was. Maybe he could do this.

  
"You okay? Sorry about Tess, she's kinda full on." He got the attention of the bartender and gestured for two beers.

  
"S'that Tess?" Daryl indicated to where the woman in question was getting her photo taken with a pair of obviously straight girls, giggling at being allowed to try on her tiara.

  
"Yup. Tess Tosterone." Shane sighed a little. "You wouldn't believe how long that fuckin' name took. You might like her better as Theodore, less cranin' your neck when he's not in heels."

  
Daryl just nodded and took a long, very necessary swig of the beer Shane passed him. He felt like he'd been hit with a truck a little bit, still trying to take everything in. Shane laughed, but it was happy, not the mocking sound Daryl was used to, and he found himself smiling reflexively in response. He shot Shane a sideways look, smirking.

  
"What?"

  
"It's just sweet man, this really is your first time, huh?" Daryl nodded. "Wow, how old are you?"

  
"Twenty-eight." Daryl shrugged, trying not to blush. Shane gave a low whistle.

  
"Not out?" Another nod. "Damn. What is it, family shit?"

  
"Can't see the redneck in me enough huh?" He managed to sound light-hearted, making a joke of himself like he usually did, but Shane stayed a little more serious.

  
"That fuckin' sucks man, I'm sorry." He clapped him on the shoulder, and for some reason Daryl had to swallow the lump that suddenly made itself known in his throat. "I'm here with a bunch of people if you wanna come hang with us. They don't bite, 'less you want them to."

  
"Sounds good." And the smile this time was genuine, unbidden.

  
Shane led them through a network of small tables and energetic dancers (and damn, Daryl had never seen a man dance like that, but he could stand to again) to a corner booth. Daryl unconsciously moved slightly behind Shane as he surveyed the table. A blonde chick, a lady with a short grey crop, a guy with dark hair and a stubbly beard who craned up to peck Shane on the lips, and a skinny Asian guy all looked up in greeting, curious when they saw Daryl not-quite-hiding behind their friend's broad shoulder.

  
"This is Daryl." Shane gestured to him, and Daryl waved shyly. For once, he felt like he didn't need to suppress his natural mannerisms which weren't really effeminate, but were more so than Merle would have stood for. Shane sat down and then tugged him into the booth next to him, the legs of too many people squeezing into a small space all tangling together under the table comfortably.

  
"This is his first time here and he don't know anyone. Figured we'd best save him from the piranha pool." Daryl didn't know what he meant by that, but he was glad the rest of the table seemed friendly. Shane went around, introducing everyone in turn. "This is Carol, Andrea. That's Glenn. N'this is my boyfriend Rick."

  
"Nice t'meet you." He was trying to be polite, not drive away this new group of people who were currently his only lifeline in this place. The grey-haired woman, Carol, recognised his hesitance and laughed, raising her glass to clink against his beer bottle.

  
"Well it's nice to meet you too Daryl. You from around here?"

  
"Yeah, just a bit further down south."

  
"How come we've never seen you around before?"

  
"I'm, uh," he fumbled for the words, teasing out the terminology to make sense in his own mind before he tried to use it. "I'm not out to anyone yet."

  
To his surprise, a ripple of understanding went around the table, in the form of nods or grimaces.

  
"I hear you. Took me until I already had a husband and a kid to get up the guts to be honest"

  
"Speak for yourself, I came out the womb Vogueing." Shane winked, to laughter from the group.

  
"Me too." Glenn piped up, causing another laugh and a blush to spread across his cheeks. "Well, not so much the Vogueing, but I've been out since I was like thirteen."

  
"Really? N' your parents still talk to you n' shit?" Daryl asked, amazed. Glenn nodded in response, looking a little sad that Daryl would have to ask the question. "Damn. That's awesome."

  
"Yeah. Think I forget not everyone has awesome parents, sometimes." Glenn trailed off, talking mostly to himself. It was obvious he was the youngest of the group as Rick nudged him in the side, silently reminding him not to bum everyone out.

  
"So what's the catch, then?" Andrea asked, addressing the issue so casually Daryl wanted to hug her. "Your family religious?"

  
"Nah, just rednecks."

  
"How redneck are we talkin'?" Shane leaned forward intently, and Rick rolled his eyes at his boyfriend's predictable reaction.

  
"Grew up next to the woods. Huntin', trackin'." Daryl shrugged, not really having much to compare his experience of 'redneck' to in order to measure it. "My brother's this kinda lazy racist, the whole white supremacist shit just cause he don't think too hard about it, in n' out of prison. Dad was a hunter, drove trucks."

  
"What about you? What do you do now?"

  
"Still hunt a lot. M' a mechanic, trucks and bikes mostly. Specialise in motorcycles."

  
"Dirty work, fixin' motorcycles." Shane leered good-naturedly. Daryl realised he was being flirted with and decided to take the initiative.

  
"Yeah." He agreed. "Get so dirty sometimes I reckon it'd be easier to strip down and just work on the engines naked. Get oil in places you wouldn't believe."

  
"Stop, I'm getting a hard on." Shane groaned exaggeratedly, and the group burst into laughter as Rick slapped him on the back of the head. Daryl grinned and tried not to blush, feeling the tips of his ears heat up.

  
"I'm right here." Rick pinched his boyfriend's ear, prompting a theatrical 'Ow!' "Keep your hick fetish on a leash."

  
"This abuse." But Shane leaned over and kissed him in apology anyway.

  
"Yeah, don't start telling him you wear blue jeans and doc martens." Carol winked at Daryl. "We'll be here all day."

  
"You can have a thing for blue jeans and boots?" Daryl was going to have to start taking notes if he had any more new information thrown his way. "That's what all the guys wear where I live."

  
"Alright, I'm never getting up. My dick could cut glass." Shane announced, and Rick rolled his eyes melodramatically.

  
"I can't fuckin' take you anywhere."

  
"Oh, you could."

  
"Simmer down cowboy."

  
"Boys." Andrea rolled her eyes and flapped her hands at the pair of them, before turning to Daryl. "They're idiots. You'll get used to them."

  
And Daryl grinned to himself, because he had people to get used to now. He settled back in his seat and let the conversation flow around him, drinking his beer and trying not to smile like an idiot. Baby steps was one thing, but jumping in the deep end didn't seem so bad after all. The vice that'd been tight around his chest for years felt a little looser now; it wasn't gone, but he could breathe a little easier. In the dark of the bar, sitting with people who didn't care about what he was, he couldn't remember ever feeling this light.

  
Maybe later he'd even dance.


End file.
